


A Cat's the Only Cat

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: Ev'rybody Wants To Be a Cat [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: (or more pining i guess), Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Other, Pining, Polyamory, even more rambling than the last one, i should probably learn to edit better, some of these people have Done This Before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-17 18:09:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10599387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "'No,' Mitchie says, warm and teasing, 'go out like on a date.''Oh,' says Aaron, and thinks about the past four months, about Meg's hands on his when she taught him to use a knife, about the way Mitchie looks at him in practice sometimes, holding his chin and grinning at him to keep his head up. He thinks about the way Mtchie's hand always lingers on his lower back when they pass each other on the boat, and the way Meg always drapes herself over both of them when they watch movies together.He thinks... 'I think I've been pretty stupid.'"





	1. A Square in the Act

The season is a mess right from the start.

Aaron's pretty sure it's mostly his fault. He's not a very good A, can't rally the rest of the defense or help D-Mac or even fucking pull himself together, and all that is absolutely, 100%, _his fault_.

\--

It starts completely innocently, just a rookie going to live with his captain. It's supposed to keep him out of trouble, probably, but instead Aaron finds himself tumbling deeper and deeper into a pit that might as well have 'trouble' written all over it in flashing neon lights. Or 'falling for both halves of the married couple you live with and also one of them is your captain,' but 'trouble' is shorter and a lot easier to come to terms with.

He knows it's happening from the very first night, too, when Mitchie brings him in and introduces him as 'the new houseboy' with a grin like a cat's, when Meg sizes him up and says, "Welcome home," shooting Mitchie a look Aaron thinks means 'he'll do,' when he kneels down to make friends with Pinot and catches them smiling at him as the dog licks his face. Meg cooks something delicious and unpronounceable with fish she says Mitchie caught, and they let him drink the wine as well, which is also delicious and unpronounceable and much better than any other alcohol he's had. He says so, too, in between complimenting them and thanking them as much as he possibly can, and they chirp him for it over the dishes, Mitchie swatting him with the dishtowel when he's too slow, Meg gently teasing his low-alcohol-tolerance blush from her perch on the island.

The longer he lives there, the worse it gets. He starts to fall in love with their infectious senses of fun, with their singleminded focus and their strong passions for all the things they care about. He starts coming up with excuses to spend even more time with them, staying late at practice with Mitchie, reading some of Meg's favorite books, learning to make cookies, sitting on the boat and listening to a lecture about the ecology of the area or the sustainability of salmon farming in British Columbia.

At night, he lies awake, worrying about all the things that could happen if they find out, hoping that they never, ever do.

\--

They invite him to join them in the Keys for Christmas, and Aaron's almost ashamed of the speed with which he makes excuses to his family, reminding them the Panthers have two games in Detroit earlier in the month, telling them he'll bring their gifts then.

It's while they're there, out on the boat over a little reef in what Aaron's pretty sure has to be the middle of literally nowhere, that he finds out how bad his poker face actually is.

He's just come on board and is downing some water when Mitchie joins him. "Time for more sunscreen," he says, and Aaron's the one who ends up finding it, hidden under his shirt somehow. "You, too, Eks." 

"You're the captain," Aaron says, and applies a pretty liberal amount to his own shoulders before helping Mitchie with his back, chirping him for being an old man.

Mitchie chirps right back when he returns the favor before stilling, hands on Aaron's shoulders, and leaning forwards to speak directly into Aaron's ear. His voice is low, and hot, and exactly like Aaron will never admit to fantasizing about, and it may be December but the only explanation for this is heat stroke. Aaron is _definitely_ suffering from heat stroke, and Mitchie is _not_ on the boat and he _didn't_ just ask, "And does the captain get _everything_ he wants?" in a voice like _pure sex_.

Aaron turns his head to tell hallucination-Mitchie all of this. 

Mitchie kisses him.

It's hardly anything, just the barest brush of lips at an awkward angle, but Aaron's almost positive it's real. He panics and pulls away, nearly falling over his own gear in his haste to escape. When he has some distance between them, he can't help but stare at Mitchie, searching for some kind of answer, because _what the fuck just happened?_

Mitchie just stands there, mild and unconcerned and not even particularly surprised. "What do you _think_ just happened, Eks?" he asks, and his face goes from 'butter wouldn't melt' to 'but _you_ would' and back so fast Aaron almost thinks he imagined it. It's almost comforting - maybe what he's really imagining is that he doesn't have heat stroke? - but a question pops into his head then and if it _is_ all real, it's one he really needs answered.

"What about Meg?"

"What _about_ Meg?" asks Meg, climbing on board and wringing out her hair. "And why does Aaron look like a startled fawn?"

Aaron is trying to decide, in his panic-addled brain, whether he should be offended by that when Mitchie finally has the decency to look a little bit guilty. "Well..." he says, and Meg sighs at him.

"Oh, Willie, you _didn't_."

"Only a little bit!" protests Mitchie, and she shakes her head at him before turning to Aaron.

"I'm so sorry!" he starts, but she shushes him, going up on tiptoes to kiss him on the nose.

"Don't worry about it," she says, picking up the sunscreen. "Now come help me with my back."

\--

Nobody brings it up when they go back out.

Meg makes him hold a brittle star, laughing at his surprise when it tickles its way across his palm, and doesn't ask him any questions. Mitchie keeps finding lobsters, sending Aaron back to the boat for the net more than a few times. He keeps three and lets two smaller ones go, and when he measures them, lecturing Aaron on the importance of catch restrictions, he doesn't try to kiss him again. They chase rays, and see an eel and more brightly-colored fish than he can name, and he swims over an interestingly-shaped rock once or twice before he realizes it's actually an eight-foot nurse shark. It doesn't scare him, not like Meg and Mitchie's smiling normality has him scared. The three-foot barracuda he sees afterwards is incredibly creepy, though, and he doesn't quite feel settled again until Mitchie sidetracks his rant about lionfish with a promise to take them conching in the Bahamas one day.

Aaron helps Mitchie tie up the boat, worrying again when Meg takes the lobsters up to the house and leaves them alone, but nothing happens.

\--

The tension is killing him at dinner, but he'd also rather get up close to that barracuda than have this conversation. That said, he can tell by the way Meg and Mitchie are being weird that it's not something he can really avoid. It's almost enough to make him skip dinner, but it's the lobsters they caught today and Meg made it and it's way too good to waste just because he's slightly panicking. Also Mitchie would probably give him a lecture about exactly how many lobsters there are in the Keys and guilt him into eating it anyway.

But they don't talk over dinner. They don't talk over the dishes, either, sending each other coded looks that Aaron can't even begin to decipher. Instead, they wait until afterwards, in the living room, Meg pouring everyone a glass of wine and sitting on the couch next to Aaron, Willie pulling up the ottoman and sitting on that. Aaron pretends not to notice that they sort of have him trapped. He also pretends not to look for escape routes. (Over the back of the couch, he thinks, because if he tries to climb over either of them someone will probably get hurt.) 

"Aaron," says Meg, putting a hand on his knee and snapping him out of it, "I feel like we haven't been subtle, but if you didn't expect Willie to kiss you...?"

"I had no idea," Aaron tells her, full of guilt, both for having wanted it and for throwing Mitchie under the bus here.

"You didn't do anything wrong." She leans in, her hand moving up his thigh. "We should have been more clear."

"Clear about what?" he asks, more confused than ever. 

Meg covers Mitchie's mouth faster than Aaron clears pucks from the crease, and says, carefully, "Whatever your answer is, it's fine. We're not going to kick you out or feel any differently about you if you say no. Willie won't make things difficult for you with the team. All we want to know is whether you'd like to go out with us."

"Go out... like on the boat again?" he asks, because he can only think of one other meaning and they can't possibly want what he wants.

Meg brings both hands to her face, leaving Aaron's thigh cold, leaving Mitchie free to give the answer. "No," he says, warm and teasing, "go out like on a date."

"Oh," says Aaron, and thinks about the past four months, about Meg's hands on his when she taught him to use a knife, about the way Mitchie looks at him in practice sometimes, holding his chin and grinning at him to keep his head up. He thinks about the way Mtchie's hand always lingers on his lower back when they pass each other on the boat, and the way Meg always drapes herself over both of them when they watch movies together. 

He thinks... "I think I've been pretty stupid."

"That's why the two of you need me," Meg says, sitting up and ruffling their hair, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world for him to lean in and kiss her.

\--

When they get home, he moves into their bedroom.

\--

He moves out of their house a year later.

"I feel like we're doing this backwards," Willie jokes, but his heart is obviously not in it.

"I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to," says Aaron. He feels like crying.

"We know, sweetheart," Meg says, and hugs him as tight as she can.

Aaron still stays there more than he's at his own place, and sometimes on the road he still finds himself waking up in Willie's room, but it still kind of makes him feel distant from them. He wishes desperately that his agent was wrong, that the front office would still be likely to think of him as leadership quality even if he wasn't living by himself, but he knows it's the truth.

He also wishes, lying alone in his too-quiet house, that he could tell someone.

Willie had taken him aside after about the fifteenth chirp from Troch and told him it was fine to tell the team if he wanted, that he and Meg had discussed it before and secrecy wasn't necessary, but Aaron still hasn't told anyone and he's still not quite sure why.

Lu knows, he's pretty sure, and Jags and Soupy might suspect, but nobody else seems to have a clue. Maybe Aaron doesn't tell anyone because keeping it a secret makes him feel closer to Meg and Willie somehow. Maybe he's just scared of the way the team might react. Mostly, he doesn't think about it, just works hard and keeps his head up and tries to be the very best defenseman he can be.

\--

When Willie gets concussed again, Aaron kind of knows it's going to be the end of his career. They don't talk about it, though, quietly cuddling in the dark or washing dishes while Willie takes Meg's usual spot, and it still hasn't really hit him when Willie finally tells Aaron so.

He cries. Then he tells the press he cried.

Meg has to kiss the embarrassment off his face.

\--

He cries again when they're knocked out of the playoffs, feeling like he could have, should have, done more, alone in a hotel room in a city of millions.

\--

Aaron't obviously not surprised when Willie doesn't re-sign, but he's absolutely shocked when Meg and Willie tell him they're going back to Vancouver. 

"Me and Hammer bought a hotel!" Willie says, beaming.

"It's going to be an interesting challenge," Meg says, like it used to be a fight but now it's a joke.

"But I thought you were going to stay here!" says Aaron, and he knows there's a whine in his voice like a kid throwing a tantrum but it's seriously _not fair_.

"We'll be down a lot, sweetheart," Meg tells him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"Fishing is a lot nicer when you're not worried about freezing your balls off," Willie jokes. "Besides, _you're_ here. There's no chance we could stay away." He tousles Aaron's hair.

It's too much. Aaron feels blindsided, and hurt, and betrayed, and condescended to, and it's _too much_. He pulls away from them.

"Don't even call me," snaps Aaron, turning his back on them and walking away.

He doesn't even say goodbye.


	2. Who Knows How To Swing

The thing is, Aaron expects them to call him anyway.

They don't.

It hurts him all over again, every day.

\--

(Guddy gets traded to Vancouver and Aaron is so, so ashamed that he wishes it was him instead.)

\--

When he gets hurt at the World Cup, Aaron is sure that's the thing that'll make Willie call at last, all concerned about concussion, and Aaron can tell him no, that he thinks (hopes) it's just whiplash, and by the way, he's sorry for being a complete ass. But Willie doesn't call.

When he gets the A, Aaron thinks maybe this will be what gets Meg to call him, all proud of his achievement, and he can tell her he's just glad it's not the C, and also he wants to apologise for being scared and selfish and stupid. But Meg doesn't call either.

Huby has to be helped off the ice, and Aaron feels the weight of the team settling squarely on his shoulders, even though he's not the captain. He knows he's the one who kicked away all his own support pillars, but even so he feels overwhelmed and upset, like this is the thing that's going to make him cave and call them and grovel and cry.

Somehow, he doesn't.

\--

He plays like shit, and he can't focus, and the team is pissing around at .500 when Turk is fired.

It's hard not to think it's entirely his fault.

\--

Aaron doesn't bother pretending, after that, that he's not staring at Pysser's stall, the one that used to be Willie's. It's not like anyone's going to notice, anyway, with how unobservant they are, and how wrapped up in the pining of certain Minnesota boys, so he stares. Some nights there's really nothing else he can do.

Except then he gets caught. By Troch, of all people. Troch, who took a month to notice when Aaron started growing a beard, who seems completely oblivious to Bjugs and Rau, wanders by and looks, just _looks_ at him, and Aaron is bracing himself for weeks of really upsetting chirping.

All Troch says is, "He has a phone, you know," and wanders off, completely unaware that he's a sign from the universe that Aaron should probably suck it up and just call them already.

\--

It takes him a while. As much as he misses them - the feeling of them surrounding him, their love and support, their mouths and hands, the things they say to him and the things they _do_ to him - he still remembers, more clearly than anything, the way they looked the last time he saw them. The hurt in their faces. The hurt he put there.

He's scared they won't answer. He's scared they will. Mostly he's just scared they won't forgive him, that they'll never trust him again, that they already have someone else, someone who won't take his own insecurities out on them. He worries that his call might hurt them more, that he'd only be doing it to satisfy his own feelings, that it might be yet another selfish move on his part.

He's on a plane on New Years' Day when he realises they don't actually have to answer.

\--

He calls from bed so he can use his pillow to punch or cry into or sleep on while wishing he'd never wake up, bracing himself for voicemail and the sound of two of them living a perfectly good life without him.

Meg answers on the first ring.

"Aaron?" she asks, like she doesn't believe it's anything but a pocket-dial.

Aaron doesn't realise he's crying until he chokes out a "Hi, Meg." He knows exactly what face she's making now, too. Imagining it is like a punch in the heart.

"Sweetheart, is everything alright?" Meg asks, calling "Willie, phone!" in a voice that sounds muffled by a hand over the receiver.

"I'm so sorry," he says, over the click of another phone being picked up. "I was scared you didn't want me anymore, that you'd be together in Canada and call less and less until I was all alone, and I thought," he breathes, jagged-edged from crying, trying to collect himself, "I thought I'd feel better if I broke up with you before you could break up with me. But instead I just hurt all of us, for no good reason, and I'm so, _so_ , sorry, and I understand-"

"Aaron," Meg tries to interrupt.

"I understand if you can never forgive me-"

"Aaron," says Willie. It's the first time in more than six months that Aaron has heard his voice, and it stops him cold. "We understand," he says, and Aaron starts crying again.

His pillow is kind of disgusting by the time Meg says, in a watery voice and with Willie blowing his nose in the background, "We're actually coming down next week. Why don't we all get together then and talk about it face-to face?"

"Okay," Aaron agrees, easily, feeling a lot better than he has in a long time.

"Then we'll see you next week, Eks," Willie says, hanging up his line.

"Bye, Aaron," says Meg, laughing a little.

"Bye, Meg," Aaron replies, but it feels more like a hello.

\--

It's possible that Aaron spends the rest of the day in bed, too.

It's possible that his sheets are even more gross than his pillow by the time he's done.

\--

Still, it has been six months; he's not expecting them to fall back into bed with him or even that they'll want to try dating again, much as he might want to. Honestly, Aaron's not even expecting them to ask him to pick them up at the airport, and he definitely isn't expecting the way they hug him when he gets there, Meg running up to nearly tackle him, Willie dropping suitcases to squeeze them both tight. "Let me get your bags," Aaron says, with what little air is left in his lungs, and they do. 

It feels like a tiny act of penance to him, like one small step on a long road.

\--

He takes them straight back to their place so Meg can fuss over the potential damage a series of vacationers might have caused her kitchen. Willie just smiles and unlocks the pantry, pulling out a bottle of cheap red, pouring three glasses and waiting for Meg to be done.

Sitting at the table, Aaron has a feeling they want him to say something. He has no idea what. He fiddles nervously with the stem of his wine glass. It doesn't help.

"Look, I really am sorry," he tries, trailing off when Willie raises an eyebrow and Meg presses her lips together like she's trying not to sigh.

"Oh, Aaron," she says, after a while. "It's our fault, too."

"No, it isn't."

Willie presses a calming hand to his. "It is. We didn't consider your feelings about my retirement or that you might want input into our plans, and after we made them we didn't communicate them to you very well at all."

"And constant communication is the number one rule," Meg says. "We never should have forgotten it."

"Oh," says Aaron, still kind of guilty but a little less than before, and the word expands to create a comfortable silence which they still all try to break at once.

"Aaron first," says Meg, and Willie nods.

"Does that mean we can all try again?"

"You're sure that's what you want?" Meg asks.

"More than anything," he answers, and she gets up to kiss him on the cheek, Willie's hand tightening on his. 

He's so relieved he cries.

\--

Aaron takes them out to dinner that night and cooks for them after the loss the next, kissing them goodnight outside their front door when he drops them off.

After the Columbus game, they invite him to 'come home for dinner,' and he nearly cries again.

Besides having to make his own excuses to the guys, it's exactly like it used to be, delicious food and delicious wine and feet tangling together under the table, and afterwards they look at him with the same old expressions and start talking about dessert.

"I have a Key lime pie in the fridge," Meg says.

"I think there might be something sweeter in the bedroom," says Willie.

They leer at him, and Aaron licks his lips automatically, heat traveling down his body to pool in the general vicinity of his hips. 

"I wonder what that could be," he says, trying for sexy. His throat is suddenly dry and he stumbles a little over the end of it, just like the first time they invited him into their bed. And, just like then, they don't laugh or chirp or ask him if he's alright; they just offer him their hands and wait for him to decide. Aaron almost doesn't take them, because he feels like he doesn't deserve them and their forgiveness is way too easy - but he wants this, and he doesn't want to ruin things again, so he makes himself reach out.

He takes their hands.

"Let's find out," says Meg, and they walk down the hall.

They don't let go of him in the bedroom, either, Meg grabbing his shirtfront and working tiny buttons open one by one, Willie pulling him close by the pockets and undoing his belt. When he's down to his underwear, they stop, looking at him expectantly. He stands there, confused again, the small damp spot on the front of his boxers cooling in the A/C, and all he can think to ask is, "What?"

"You're the captain tonight," Willie says, and Aaron is pretty sure he gets it but he turns to Meg just in case he doesn't.

"You defer to us a lot, hon," she says, "but it's an equal relationship. If you want something, you have to say so, so that we can all consider the idea. And vice versa."

"So tonight what _we_ want is for you to get what _you_ want. _Everything_ you want," Willie says, and grins. "How does that sound to you?"

"Oh," says Aaron. "Um..."

"Take your time," says Meg, as Willie sends his shirt to join Aaron's on the floor, prompting her to do the same.

Aaron looks at them, and decides.

"Take your pants off," he tells Willie, walking over to stand behind Meg. "You, too, please," he whispers in her ear, unclasping her bra when she straightens up, plastering himself along her back and teasing her nipples with his hockey-calloused fingers. Aaron meets Willie's eyes. "Come kiss me," he says, and Willie does.

They stand there for a long moment, until Aaron feels like he's been kissed pliant, until Meg's breathing starts to go a little ragged around the edges, until Willie starts to get a little aggressive with his tongue, a sign he's feeling impatient. "Bed," says Aaron, and they go.

He's not quite sure, as they stumble over, what his endgame is. Then Willie reaches out with one of his long arms and switches on the lamp. Directly under it is a box of condoms, and behind that, half-hidden like they were trying not to pressure him into anything, is a bottle of lube. It gives him a great idea.

"I want to be in the middle," he says.

"And that's what _you_ want, right?" asks Meg, like she noticed him noticing.

"I'm the captain," says Aaron, a hint of a smirk on his face, and they smile back at him.

"You're the captain," Willie confirms, and grabs the lube.

Meg settles back on the bed, legs over the side, parted slightly. Aaron sheds his boxers and kneels between them, kissing his way up her inner thigh, enjoying the softness, the scent of arousal, of Meg, before helping her off with her panties. They're wet - _she's_ wet - and it makes him want to taste her, so he does. He gets his tongue on her, teasing his way up to her clit just as Willie gets his first finger into him. Aaron groans, just a little, mouth vibrating against Meg. She sighs, knees tensing slightly, and that's the exact moment Aaron decides he's going to get her off once before Willie's done fingering him open.

He tries every trick he can think of. As Willie adds more lube, Aaron teases carefully around Meg's clit, building suspense until she's shifting her hips to chase his tongue. Willie begins to crook and thrust with his finger, and Aaron moans against Meg's skin, making her gasp in response and reach for his hair. She pulls him in, her back arching when Aaron lets himself groan again at Willie's second finger. As he starts to move them, scissoring and twisting, Aaron flicks his tongue against her clit a few times, not too hard, before returning to the tease, licking into her, switching back when he knows it'll make her legs shake. She's close when Willie adds the third, and Aaron stops stroking her thighs so he can get his thumb on her clit. It's a little faster and a little stronger than his tongue, and he has a better view of her whole body trembling as she comes. "Fuck," she says, adding, "give me a minute, sweetheart," when she catches her breath, and Aaron's attention turns to the feeling of Willie's thick fingers in his ass. His own breath gets a little ragged as he tries not to feel overwhelmed by how much he missed this and how much he wants it now.

Willie does something with his fingers that makes them feel longer somehow, and Aaron's wandering mind snaps back to the moment. "Good?" Willie asks.

Aaron has to think about it. He still feels a little stretched, but there's none of the burn of 'too much' left when he shifts his hips.

"Ready, Meg?" he asks, because he doesn't want to start without her.

"Very."

"Good," he says, and starts to stand up. Willie's fingers slip free, but Aaron can hear him putting on a condom and slicking up behind him as Meg sits up to put one on Aaron. She lines him up and he slides in without a thought, moving forward until he's all the way in. It coincides with the small popping sound of Willie's knee as he gets up, and moments later there are arms around him and a chin on his shoulder, heat along his back and a weight pushing him further into Meg, making them both sigh.

Willie presses into Aaron, almost impossibly slowly. Aaron feels like his skin is buzzing, his heart in his throat, with the steady drag of Willie's dick inside him, with Meg dripping down his thighs. When Willie is all the way in, the three of them still, for a moment. The only sound in the room is their breathing; the only motion, the ceiling fan, stirring the air around them.

It makes Aaron wish he could stop time.

Then Willie shifts his hips, making Aaron's breath catch, and he's really glad he can't.

He reaches out to play with Meg's chest again as Willie starts a slow, grinding rhythm, one that makes Aaron groan and Meg bite her lip. She sits up so she can kiss him, slow and deep, and the way she tightens around his dick makes him shiver. Willie groans into Aaron's shoulder, hips briefly stuttering off the pace, and when he gets his breath back he starts kissing his way down Aaron's neck and it feels _so nice_. When Willie nips at his shoulder it's even nicer, nice enough to make his hips jerk. The noise Meg makes into their kiss at that makes him want to do it again. He presses back onto Willie's cock so he can have even better leverage just as Willie leans forwards slightly, and the sensation is enough that he ends up fucking hard into Meg anyway.

That's kind of when everything starts to feel a little... _more_. Willie is fucking him harder, using more teeth, more tongue on Aaron's neck. Meg is kissing him sloppily, desperately, grinding against him in a way that makes him want to get his thumb on her clit again. He does, rubbing tiny circles against it as hard and as fast as he can, and it's only a few moments before she comes, right as Willie makes him see stars, and the two of them push him over the edge.

He gets out from between them and throws the condoms in the bathroom garbage, feeling like he always does after being fucked, like his brain wants to keep going but his dick is kind of done. When he gets back to the bedroom, Willie's sitting on the bed next to Meg, lazily making out, casually jerking himself off. Aaron crosses the room quietly, kneeling next to them and tapping Willie's wrist. Willie stops, without looking, and moves his hand out of the way. Aaron takes the head of his cock into his mouth.

"Fuck," says Willie, breaking away from Meg, who laughs. Aaron almost wants to do the same, but he restrains himself, humming instead before licking his way down to the base and back up the other side. When he's done, he takes in as much as he can, loosely wrapping two fingers and a thumb around the rest so he won't choke himself. When he's ready, he sets a quick pace; Willie is already close enough that finesse is unnecessary. The sounds of them continuing to kiss above him, of Willie's occasional sharp breaths, only spur him on. He manages to speed up, somehow, lips meeting fingers more and more frequently until Willie puts a hand to Aaron's face in too-late warning and comes in his mouth.

Aaron swallows - as best he can with a dick in his mouth, anyway - and pulls off slowly, with a little suction, just the way he knows Willie likes. Willie sighs and ruffles Aaron's hair with his non-lubey hand. Meg offers to help him up, pulling him into a kiss.

Afterwards, they slowly take on the same wordless post-coital routine from when Aaron still lived with them, brushing teeth, washing up, trading smiles and touches like they're happy he's there, and when they finally go to bed, they make sure Aaron's in the middle. Tomorrow, he knows, there will probably be more talking, and crying, and maybe he shouldn't be looking forward to it, but he is: 

Tonight, they know by the heat of each other's bodies that they're all together.

But tomorrow, they'll know by the heat in each other's voices just how much they all want to stay that way.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Aaron Ekblad is too precious for this world  
> \- that is all.


End file.
